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I just finished listening to the TWiM 35 on LPS in Vibrio (among other topics). Dr. Elio Schaechter mentioned a field in Microbiology that I think is of great interest to the scientific community and should definitely be covered in a podcast. The topic is: Outer Membrane Biogenesis in Gram-negative bacteria. For decades people have been hypothesizing and trying to find an evolutionary link that would answer the following questions: how did a second membrane in bacteria come about and was the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) a single or double-membraned organism. These questions are extremely difficult to address and rely heavily on bioinformatics and phylogenetic analysis.

I'm the first author of the paper that I'm suggesting here as a resource for a potential podcast. I've read extensive amounts of scientific literature before the paper was finalized and published in Cell to realize that currently, there are no favored hypotheses and the very few hypotheses that exist are highly controversial. In our paper we structurally characterize (using electron cryo-tomography) the process of endospore formation. The process is typically thought of as exclusive to Gram-positive bacteria members of the phylum Firmicutes, however, we imaged a Gram-negative organism (Acetonema longum) that is also able to sporulate! Through our structural studies, phylogenetic profiling and biochemical analysis we showed that A. longum possesses a true outer membrane. Not only that, after sporulation, the spore is surrounded by two membranes both of which originated from the inner membrane of the mother cell. Upon outgrowth, the second membrane of the spore becomes the outer membrane of the bacterium and therefore is remodeled from and inner into and outer membrane. These are fascinating new results that may provide us with a missing link between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and give insights into how an outer membrane may have evolved.

Here are a couple of links to the paper I'm suggesting and a commentary by Dr. W. Vollmer on this work:

Dear Prof. Schmidt, I listened the podcast in Microbiology that you recently contributed together with Vincent Racaniello, Joseph John and Elio Schaechter. You made a very nice summary and commentary of the International Symposium on Staphylococci held last August in Lyon.

Furthermore, I would like to thank you for all your nice words about the symposium that we organized and on our recent opinion paper titled “Inferring reasons for the failure of S. aureus vaccines in clinical trials” and published in Frontiers Cell. Inf. Microbio.

Best wishes,

Fabio

Fabio Bagnoli, PhD

Project Leader

Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics

Alice writes:

Hey TWIM-MERs -- this is from a wildlife rehab newsletter, thought you might be interested:

MRSA in Wildlife

One of the most notorious and hard-to-treat bacteria in humans has been found in wildlife, according to a new study in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases. Researchers isolated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in two rabbits and a shorebird. Wild animals may act as an environmental reservoir for the disease from which humans could get infected.

Molecular typing of the isolates showed that the shorebird carried a hospital-associated strain of MRSA, while the rabbits had community-associated strains. The rabbits' MRSA also was resistant to tetracycline, which is common in farm animals.

Perhaps most troubling of all was that one of the pigeons carried a Staphylococcus bacterium that, while still sensitive to methicillin, was resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin. "Vancomycin is used as a last resort in MRSA infections," says study co-author Shylo Wardyn, “and vancomycin-resistant staph strains are rare in humans.” Abstract: http://www.jwildlifedis.org/content/48/4/1069.abstractlink

Peter writes:

Happy Halloween greetings Twim Team.

For a slightly microbiology themed Halloween costume I constructed a Plague Doctor mask.

Comment: I feel like this issue is quite broad and interesting and was hoping that ocean geoengineering might be worth discussing. It's my understanding that scientists are wary of such approaches, to say the least, but this event seems to demonstrate a certain necessity for the international community to come to terms with geoengineering and sort out strategies and methods. As a layman, I'd be very interested in what you guys have to say!

Quick excerpt from the beginning of the article:

"A controversial American businessman dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean as part of a geoengineering scheme off the west coast of Canada in July, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

...

Satellite images appear to confirm the claim by Californian Russ George that the iron has spawned an artificial plankton bloom as large as 10,000 square kilometres. The intention is for the plankton to absorb carbon dioxide and then sink to the ocean bed – a geoengineering technique known as ocean fertilisation that he hopes will net lucrative carbon credits.

George is the former chief executive of Planktos Inc, whose previous failed efforts to conduct large-scale commercial dumps near the Galapagos and Canary Islands led to his vessels being barred from ports by the Spanish and Ecuadorean governments. The US Environmental Protection Agency warned him that flying a US flag for his Galapagos project would violate US laws, and his activities are credited in part to the passing of international moratoria at the United Nations limiting ocean fertilisation experiments

Scientists are debating whether iron fertilisation can lock carbon into the deep ocean over the long term, and have raised concerns that it can irreparably harm ocean ecosystems, produce toxic tides and lifeless waters, and worsen ocean acidification and global warming."

Thank you for the great podcasts,

Michael

Øystein writes:

Dear TWiMmians,

I just found the latest edition of Clinical Microbiology and Infection and read about a concept that is new to me: culturomics.

Maybe you'll be as intrigued as me by this concept. It contrasts well wil all the high-throughput-genomics hype these days. It might be a good article to put on the show (some day?).

Here are the links, I am happy to forward pdf's of the articles to you if needed.